Our
briquette
is made of all natural materials: coconut shell charcoal and
small portion of natural starch as binder. That's it! No borax, no
nitrate, no anthracite. Nada!
Briquetting is a process
where coconut shell charcoal powder is compressed under high pressure
using mechanical presses method. Mixing with very small portion of starch
under this pressure thus binding the material into a briquette. During
the compression of the material, temperatures rise sufficiently
to make the moisture in the coconut shell charcoal to evaporate. This will
produce dry briquette so it will be easy to
burn.

There are two methods in making charcoal briquettes:

- Briquetting and then CarbonizationIn this method, first the biomass must be ground into the powder form. The biomass is then pressed in briquetting machines. Biomass briquettes is then transported to charcoal kilns for further carbonization process. Due to high temperature during carbonization process, some briquettes could be cracked and damaged. Thus, grading after carbonization is critical step before shipping the finished goods to customers.

- Carbonization and then BriquettingRaw biomass first is converted to charcoal form by carbonization process. The charcoal is then ground to form the powder. Since the charcoal doesn't have lignin as natural "glue" for briquetting, we need to mix it with small portion of water and binder such as starch before press it in briquetting machines. Because of high temperature during pressing, the starch will instantly form gelatine and bind the charcoal powder. Further drying process is necessary to reduce moisture contents.

We developed briquettes for many usages such as barbecue and shisha/hookah purposes: